This FAQ is to help explain the creation and use of actions in a Plato web.

What are actions for ?

Actions allow the author to record an activity, assigned to someone, with a due date by when it is expected to be completed.

How do I define an action?

An action is defined in a similar way to other items, such as events or documents. It can have a title and description and have up to 4 attached documents. There is a user-definable qualification - category and two further fixed qualifications, priority and status. You can also define its visibility. It also has a Due Date field and an Assignee. It also has an Comments field for secondary level information.

What is the Action number?

Each action is given a unique number when created. The number starts at 1 for the first action on a Plato web and increases by 1 for each new action. (Note that it is therefore possible for actions on different Plato sites to share the same number).

What is the category?

The category is a means for grouping classes of actions. You may define new categories.

What is the priority?

These are specific to action items. The priority has a fixed set of values: High, Medium and Low.

What is the status?

In the case of action items, the status has a fixed set of values: Open, Deferred, Abandoned and Completed.

What is the visibility?

See the general FAQ on visibility.

What are the Due Date and Assignee?

These are specific to action items. The Due Date is the usual identification of when the action should be completed and the Assignee (which may be left unset) is the person expected to carry out the action..

What appears on the home page ?

As usual, a maintainer can configure the number of actions to appear on the home page. The section contains the due date and titles of the latest open actions, sorted by date of creation. The section header is a link to the summary page.

What appears on the summary page ?

Actions can be subsetted by status or grouped by status. Sorting is by default by on due date, but the column headings are links that allow the data to be sorted on different fields.

What are archived actions?

Actions can be archived, rather than deleted. An indication is given on the summary page if any archived actions exist and the summary can be switched to display them. Actions can be un-archived at a later date.

What are the alert checkboxes for?

Most items allow the creator/updater to send a preset e-mail alert to the list appropriate to the visibility level. It contains identification of the creator/updater and a URL to view the item. In addition, in the case of actions, an alert may be sent to the actionee and the creator. The actionee's alert checkbox is by default checked.

Chris French - 26 Feb 2004